Two men and a woman - one Afghan, one Turkish and one German - have been detained in Germany on suspicion of supporting and encouraging a terrorist in planning a bomb attack on police or soldiers, prosecutors in the northern city of Celle said on Friday.

The three, aged between 25 and 27, were taken into custody on Thursday night, and are suspected of aiding and abetting a serious act of violence against the state, the prosecutors said. One was found in Cologne, one in Bünde - both in the western state of North Rhine-Westphalia - and one in Hildesheim in Lower Saxony, further to the north.

The man they are suspected of supporting, Sascha L. from the central city of Northeim, has reportedly confessed to a plan to lure members of the police or army into a trap before killing them with a homemade explosive. He was arrested in February and remains in investigative custody.

High alert

Media reports say that Sascha L., who is now considered a member of the ultraconservative Islamic Salafist movement, was once active in the neo-Nazi scene.

German security forces are on high alert following a number of Islamist attacks in the country, including one in December last year that saw 12 people killed and dozens wounded when a truck drove into a Christmas market in the capital, Berlin.

A series of bomb explosions targeting the bus of soccer team Borussia Dortmund on Tuesday is also being investigated for Islamist links. No one was killed in the blasts, but Spanish defender Marc Bartra was injured by shattered glass and required surgery.

tj/kms (dpa, Reuters)